Howie Hart wrote:Well, that makes sense, as it is total consumption and I believe the states you listed are the most populated. I think per capita would be more interesting figures.

There's a quick round-about way to get at it: a little quick googling puts these state' shares of the US population (in round figures) at:

CA 12%
FL 6%
NY 7%
TX 8%
NJ 3%

Comparing these to the wine consumption figures, it appears of these CA, FL and NJ are all consuming at roughly 50% over the national per capita average. NY isn't quite pulling its weight and they must be drinking beer in TX. Overall, your supposition about population was right: 43% of the population, 43% of the wine consumption.

If you asked me to guess, I'd put my money on DC as topping the per capita list - relatively small population, lots of well-funded expense accounts.

And if the population rankings I saw from the Census Bureau site were right, Wyoming ranks last in population, but North Dakota ranks last in consumption. So Wyoming is at least making an effort. What the hell is wrong with those people in North Dakota?

Note: the odd metric means the average per adult ranges from 37.11 bottles per year in DC to 4.5 bottles per year in West Virginia. I'm impressed that the New Jersey 22+ bottles per year is so close to the California number.

It shows why state data is a little misleading, though. In urban Louisville and Northern Kentucky, and around Bob H's house in Lexington, Kentucky's numbers are probably well above the national mean. In the rest of the state, out where family trees don't branch, nobody knows what wine IS.

Ah, but with only 550,000 people, D.C. has less than 0.2% of the national population and so are consuming wine at something like 2.5 times the national per capita average. So they might just win the per capita contest!

By consumption I guess you mean purchasing? Because of course all those fancy NY and CA wine purchasers are really just stocking their cellars with bottles for investment, never to be literally consumed..

Jenise, where does Washington rank in all of this? Oooops forgot, you are all buying Canadian wine. No reliable figures.

Bob,
The former assistant Pastor at our church moved to Kitchener, Ontario. His olest son was a student of mine and before the move he looked into Canadian culture. He used to joke he was going to take over Canada by inventing beer filled donoughts. When I read the link I was instantly reminded of his wise crack. Both Americans and Canadians still have a way to go before a true wine culture has been created.
Cheers!
James

I agree that averages can be misleading -- for a number of reasons. I'm sure that the New Jersey numbers are boosted by the repressive rules in Pennsylvania -- I know there are some major retailers in New Jersey near the border, and periodically the newspapers carry a human interest story about someone getting caught "importing" wine into Pennsylvania.

But, I suppose, lots of folks in the northern burbs carry wine home from NYC.

I do have fun figuring out outliers from averages, though -- the analysis can teach you something -- I learned a little bit about Kentucky from your reactions. Thanks.

Neil, I've seen copies of the Adams report, which would probably give a good indication. But $685 is a hefty price -- worth it for the marketers but probably we couldn't garner enough interest in the Group to buy our own copy. :-)